>> guest: the classic evidence is that triad. center mall hematoma that is bleeding beneath the out side or the outer most layer of the brain. retinal hemorrhage bleeding in the back of the i and swelling. with the violent shaking by the caregiver. >> host: so the legal community would challenge this what else could happen if they have the triad? >> doctors recognize a number of causes could bring about the triad of symptoms and sometimes they referred to them as a manic of abuse

because we cannot distinguish from the classic symptoms we talk about. so those causes are metabolic disorders, auto immune disorders bleeding disorders the child can have a stroke those symptoms that they were once conclusively thought to prove abuse. >> host: how many people do think our present wrongly because of shaken baby? >> that is a hard answer for so many years or decades no one was keeping track and to collect data on a national basis upwards of 3,000 cases

over the past decades of course, not all of those have resulted in a criminal conviction with appellate cases it is hundreds and hundreds. the justice project is out of the journalism school here average western is shaken baby syndrome is only one of a number of projects they will undertake. >> how did you get involved? >> a former prosecutor working in the district attorney's office and i handle domestic violence and other cases but also a child abuse. so i was trained on the paradigms' of the triad of

symptoms. i learned from my doctor said expert witnesses. then i left the office to become a law professor and didn't think about it much at all. and tell eradicates the key matter of the field court 2000:dash 2008 of another caregiver convicted on the triad of symptoms and she had her conviction vacated by a and appeals court very concerned of the change of the scientific consensus that now that we know more someone also who did likely

did nothing to the child she is alleged to have shaken. i wondered i was concerned with retraining as a prosecutor that is in distinguishable those triad of symptoms also convicted others the science had shifted and there were so many unknowns such as audrey edmonds need to have her conviction overturned i wondered how the criminal-justice system would adapt and respond so that is what drew me into the research with the shift of scientific thinking and where it had occurred and what were the implications.

>> host: are there legitimate cases of shaken baby? >> it depends on who you ask some people say you would see neck or spine involvement or bruises. then those who say maybe you can and maybe it is a real diagnoses but we simply cannot feel confident diagnosing on these three systems alone but that the abusers should be held accountable for the prosecution to go forward with medical collaboration in the cases that i write about in my book our triad

only cases. >> host: in the say there are thousands of those? >> the data base of my now does not break that diagnosis down into triad only or triad plus. i do know there are many hundreds of. >> so why do so many ended a guilty plea? >> the evidence was seen as overwhelming and then to present expert after expert that the triad of symptoms the end of the use and until recently there wasn't a lot the defense could say in response that it could find

experts who would challenge that viewpoint so without overwhelming evidence that they would be enticed to allow a plea of guilty with a much lesser sentence that they would be convicted after trial so that it involves a very deep sentencing disparity it could be 30 or 40 years or life in the with the saudis was plead guilty to get out and time served. not justin the shaken baby context. >> host: we talked earlier with a professor that talked

about the plea bargaining. do prosecutors feel pressure to offer plea-bargain to get the case off the books? >> absolutely. judges feel the pressure and it is the way the criminal justice system keeps moving and working in to be a drain on the system that we haven't invested in our system. in the effects of that. >> deborah tuerkheimer thank you for being on booktv.

>> 1979 graduating from high school and offer from the university of washington and he was invited and accepted at princeton the family would have to pay some of the bills he would have to earn money on the side and he had a conversation with his mother who was washing dishes that i might go to the university of washington the didn't come down on him but to be disappointed but he said i will think about that because he wanted to go to princeton as the most generous -- generous act as

parents paid with the credit card and he loved to be there but it is the story he does tell. >> then a couple of years later to decide i will go to princeton also but at the time her counselor said the scores were too low. >> she said i can show them i will get into princeton. you may want to think more modestly she wrote a long essay. >> she did feel she talked her way into which because

she told the story with the action and then to say she only got in because of the actions but she argued her own case? the image she had done very well and so many other african american students ever getting access she not only went to princeton but did well there. >> was she happy? >> of very interesting remark that she made at the maya angelou the rail service last year looking back on her recent career what was like to be on the campaign trail and benches and bill loneliness and the ivy league classrooms she had a bit of a struggle when

she first got there at age 17 and worked her way through with friends and her determination. >> how did the whole affirmative action debate affect her career at princeton and a sense of herself to live in two worlds? to be other than just a shawl? >> she wrote in her senior thesis that princeton made me more aware of my blackness more than chicago because of the nature of princeton at that time where black students were in the minority and they're not so many women in she said i got to princeton i saw kids with

the of bmw i knew adults did not have those and also many black students felt not welcome and that is something she was very aware of. >> even on campus in her dormitory with her first roommate. >> it is a remarkable story having to do with the mother of her freshman roommate. this is a story that she herself tells with some chagrin at this point. she is in the dorm room and craig robinson shows up and she wasn't and when up to see her mother to say i have an african-american roommates and her mother went ballistic trying to get her daughter pulled out she complained to the authorities to say my

daughter did not come to present to live in a room with a black student but they did not move for later in this mr. she did move out but it was very dramatic at the time

>> i am thinking of the conversation that revolves around illegals. the very core of men and more to engage in the conversation with many different communities across the united states and are placed to make a long-term college tuition if we allow that status